Modeling global impact effects on middle-sized icy bodies: applications to Saturn's moons     

Lindsey S Bruesch  Erik Asphaug 《Icarus》2004,168(2):457-466

Disrupted terrains that form as a consequence of giant impacts may help constrain the internal structures of planets, asteroids, comets and satellites. As shock waves and powerful seismic stress waves propagate through a body, they interact with the internal structure in ways that may leave a characteristic impression upon the surface. Variations in peak surface velocity and tensile stress, related to landform degradation and surface rupture, may be controlled by variations in core size, shape and density. Caloris Basin on Mercury and Imbrium Basin on the Moon have disturbed terrain at their antipodes, where focusing is most intense for an approximately symmetric spheroid. Although, the icy saturnian satellites Tethys, Mimas, and Rhea possess giant impact structures, it is not clear whether these structures have correlated disrupted terrains, antipodal or elsewhere. In anticipation of high-resolution imagery from Cassini, we investigate antipodal focusing during giant impacts using a 3D SPH impact model. We first investigate giant impacts into a fiducial 1000 km diameter icy satellite with a variety of core radii and compositions. We find that antipodal disruption depends more on core radius than on core density, suggesting that core geometry may express a surface signature in global impacts on partially differentiated targets. We model Tethys, Mimas, and Rhea according to their image-derived shapes (triaxial for Tethys and Mimas and spherical for Rhea), varying core radii and densities to give the proper bulk densities. Tethys shows greater antipodal values of peak surface velocity and peak surface tensile stress, indicating more surface damage, than either Mimas or Rhea. Results for antipodal and global fragmentation and terrain rupture are inconclusive, with the hydrocode itself producing global disruption at the limits of model resolution but with peak fracture stresses never exceeding the strength of laboratory ice.  相似文献   

The lifetimes of sunspot moats     

Lindsey Pardon  Simon P. Worden  Timothy J. Schneeberger 《Solar physics》1979,61(2):247-250

In the standard model of the solar convective zone, turbulent eddies transport entropy rather than temperature. We consider the turbulent mean field equations for the convective zone, including entropy transport, and show that the zone can be unstable to larger scale motion which we identify with the supergranulation and giant cells.  相似文献   

Description of a very dense meteorite collection area in western Atacama: Insight into the long‐term composition of the meteorite flux to Earth          下载免费PDF全文

Aurore Hutzler  Jérôme Gattacceca  Pierre Rochette  Régis Braucher  Bertrand Carro  Eric J. Christensen  Cécile Cournede  Matthieu Gounelle  Nejia Laridhi Ouazaa  Rodrigo Martinez  Millarca Valenzuela  Michael Warner  Didier Bourles 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2016,51(3):468-482

We describe the geological, morphological, and climatic settings of two new meteorite collections from Atacama (Chile). The “El Médano collection” was recovered by systematic on‐foot search in El Médano and Caleta el Cobre dense collection areas and is composed of 213 meteorites before pairing, 142 after pairing. The “private collection” has been recovered by car by three private hunters and consists of 213 meteorites. Similar to other hot desert finds, and contrary to the falls and Antarctica finds, both collections show an overabundance of H chondrites. A recovery density can be calculated only for the El Médano collection and gives 251 and 168 meteorites larger than 10 g km^?2, before and after pairing, respectively. It is by far the densest collection area described in hot deserts. The Atacama Desert is known to have been hyperarid for a long period of time and, based on cosmic‐ray exposure ages on the order of 1–10 Ma, to have been stable over a period of time of several million years. Such a high meteorite concentration might be explained invoking either a yet unclear concentration mechanism (possibly related to downslope creeping) or a previously underestimated meteorite flux in previous studies or an average terrestrial age over 2 Myr. This last hypothesis is supported by the high weathering grade of meteorites and by the common terrestrial fragmentation (with fragments scattered over a few meters) of recovered meteorites.  相似文献   

A comparison of the sedimentary records of the 1960 and 2010 great Chilean earthquakes in 17 lakes: Implications for quantitative lacustrine palaeoseismology          下载免费PDF全文

Maarten Van Daele  Jasper Moernaut  Lindsey Doom  Evelien Boes  Karen Fontijn  Katrien Heirman  Willem Vandoorne  Dierk Hebbeln  Mario Pino  Roberto Urrutia  Robert Brümmer  Marc De Batist 《Sedimentology》2015,62(5):1466-1496

Seismically‐induced event deposits embedded in the sedimentary infill of lacustrine basins are highly useful for palaeoseismic reconstructions. Recent, well‐documented, great megathrust earthquakes provide an ideal opportunity to calibrate seismically‐induced event deposits for lakes with different characteristics and located in different settings. This study used 107 short sediment cores to investigate the sedimentary impact of the 1960 M_w 9·5 Valdivia and the 2010 M_w 8·8 Maule earthquakes in 17 lakes in South‐Central Chile (i.e. lakes Negra, Lo Encañado, Aculeo, Vichuquén, Laja, Villarrica, Calafquén, Pullinque, Pellaifa, Panguipulli, Neltume, Riñihue, Ranco, Maihue, Puyehue, Rupanco and Llanquihue). A combination of image analysis, magnetic susceptibility and grain‐size analysis allows identification of five types of seismically‐induced event deposits: (i) mass‐transport deposits; (ii) in situ deformations; (iii) lacustrine turbidites with a composition similar to the hemipelagic background sediments (lacustrine turbidites type 1); (iv) lacustrine turbidites with a composition different from the background sediments (lacustrine turbidites type 2) and (v) megaturbidites. These seismically‐induced event deposits were compared to local seismic intensities of the causative earthquakes, eyewitness reports, post‐earthquake observations, and vegetation and geomorphology of the catchment and the lake. Megaturbidites occur where lake seiches took place. Lacustrine turbidites type 2 can be the result of: (i) local near‐shore mass wasting; (ii) delta collapse; (iii) onshore landslides; (iv) debris flows or mudflows; or (v) fluvial reworking of landslide debris. On the contrary, lacustrine turbidites type 1 are the result of shallow mass wasting on sublacustrine slopes covered by hemipelagic sediments. Due to their more constrained origin, lacustrine turbidites type 1 are the most reliable type of seismically‐induced event deposits in quantitative palaeoseismology, because they are almost exclusively triggered by earthquake shaking. Moreover, they most sensitively record varying seismic shaking intensities. The number of lacustrine turbidites type 1 linearly increases with increasing seismic intensity, starting with no lacustrine turbidites type 1 at intensities between V½ and VI and reaching 100% when intensities are higher than VII½. Combining different types of seismically‐induced event deposits allows the reconstruction of the complete impact of an earthquake.  相似文献   

A synthetic study of geophysics-based modelling of groundwater flow in catchments with a buried valley     

Theis Raaschou Andersen  Søren Erbs Poulsen  Steen Christensen  Flemming Jørgensen 《Hydrogeology Journal》2013,21(2):491-503

Groundwater models simulating flow in buried valleys interacting with regional aquifers are often based on hydrogeological models interpreted from dense geophysical datasets and scarce borehole data. For three simple synthetic cases, it is demonstrated that alternative methods of inversion of transient electro-magnetic (TEM) data can lead to very different interpretations of the hydrogeology inside and surrounding a buried valley. The alternative interpreted hydrogeological models are used in numerical modelling of groundwater flow to a pumping well. It is demonstrated that the alternative models result in quite different groundwater-model predictions of capture zone, recharge area, and groundwater age for the pumping well. It is briefly demonstrated that model calibration against hydraulic head data is not likely to improve the predictions or to identify the structural error of the interpreted hydrogeological models. It is therefore concluded that when TEM-based resistivity models are interpreted to construct the hydrogeological framework of a groundwater model, it must be done cautiously with support from deep borehole information. Too much reliance on geophysical mapping can lead to seriously wrong hydrogeological models and correspondingly wrong groundwater-model predictions.  相似文献   

Volatile organic sulfur compounds as biomarkers complementary to methane: Infrared absorption spectroscopy of CH3SH enables insitu measurements on Earth and Mars     

Steve Vance  Lance E. Christensen  Christopher R. Webster  Keeyoon Sung 《Planetary and Space Science》2011,59(2-3):299-303

As universal products of biological processes, volatile organic sulfur compounds such as methyl mercaptan (CH₃SH) may be essential in the search for signs of life on Mars and in exoplanet atmospheres. Methyl mercaptan is implicated in the origin of life at sites of low-temperature hydrothermal activity driven by serpentinization. Serpentinization may occur on Mars, in icy satellite oceans, and in other small wet bodies to a greater extent than on Earth, with important implications for life. We characterized absorption features in pure laboratory sample spectra of CH₃SH using the Carbon Isotope Laser Spectrometer (CILS), an infrared $(3.27\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m})$ tunable diode laser spectrometer with capabilities nearly identical to those of the Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory. The molecular species proves detectable by CILS and TLS at the sensitivities approaching the level of parts per trillion with pre-concentration. These measurements demonstrate the possibility for detection of methyl mercaptan, with implications for its possible use as an in situ biosignature for Earth-based and extraterrestrial exploration.  相似文献   

Star‐forming galaxies observed with X‐shooter     

L. Christensen 《Astronomische Nachrichten》2011,332(3):301-306

In the last couple of decades hundreds of studies have explored the nature of star‐forming galaxies at different redshifts. This contribution focuses on X‐shooter observations of star‐burst galaxies at 0 < z < 6 from commissioning runs, science verification, and regular observations, and demonstrates the capability of the new instrument in this competitive field. Observations of gravitationally lensed galaxies show that X‐shooter has no limitation in the redshift desert (1.4 < z < 2) where the strong optical emission lines are shifted to the near‐IR region. Physical properties of galaxies, such as masses, metallicities, abundance ratios, and star formation rates can be derived from observations with relatively short integration times for faint galaxies. The simultaneous UV to near‐IR spectral coverage makes derivation of physical quantities more reliable because there are no differential slit losses as may occur when observations from different optical and near‐IR instruments are used. Over the entire redshift range, spectra of faint galaxies will allow us to better measure stellar ages and dominating ionisation sources compared to broad band spectral energy distribution measurements (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)  相似文献   

Magneto-Acoustic Energetics Study of the Seismically Active Flare of 15 February 2011     

J. D. Alvarado-Gómez  J. C. Buitrago-Casas  J. C. Martínez-Oliveros  C. Lindsey  H. Hudson  B. Calvo-Mozo 《Solar physics》2012,280(2):335-345

Multi-wavelength studies of energetic solar flares with seismic emissions have revealed interesting common features between them. We studied the first GOES X-class flare of Solar Cycle 24, as detected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). For context, seismic activity from this flare (SOL2011-02-15T01:55-X2.2, in NOAA AR 11158) has been reported by Kosovichev (Astrophys. J. Lett., 734, L15, 2011) and Zharkov et?al. (Astrophys. J. Lett., 741, L35, 2011). Based on Dopplergram data from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), we applied standard methods of local helioseismology in order to identify the seismic sources in this event. RHESSI hard X-ray data are used to check the correlation between the location of the seismic sources and the particle-precipitation sites in during the flare. Using HMI magnetogram data, the temporal profile of fluctuations in the photospheric line-of-sight magnetic field is used to estimate the magnetic-field change in the region where the seismic signal was observed. This leads to an estimate of the work done by the Lorentz-force transient on the photosphere of the source region. In this instance, this is found to be a significant fraction of the acoustic energy in the attendant seismic emission, suggesting that Lorentz forces can contribute significantly to the generation of sunquakes. However, there are regions in which the signature of the Lorentz force is much stronger, but from which no significant acoustic emission emanates.  相似文献   

Climate change impacts on groundwater hydrology – where are the main uncertainties and can they be reduced?     

J.C. Refsgaard  T.O. Sonnenborg  M.B. Butts  J.H. Christensen  S. Christensen  M. Drews 《水文科学杂志》2013,58(13):2312-2324

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses how various sources of uncertainty propagate through the uncertainty cascade from emission scenarios through climate models and hydrological models to impacts, with a particular focus on groundwater aspects from a number of coordinated studies in Denmark. Our results are similar to those from surface water studies showing that climate model uncertainty dominates the results for projections of climate change impacts on streamflow and groundwater heads. However, we found uncertainties related to geological conceptualization and hydrological model discretization to be dominant for projections of well field capture zones, while the climate model uncertainty here is of minor importance. How to reduce the uncertainties on climate change impact projections related to groundwater is discussed, with an emphasis on the potential for reducing climate model biases through the use of fully coupled climate–hydrology models.